<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>the wounded with the wounder's whip by aflashofgreen</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26161933">the wounded with the wounder's whip</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/aflashofgreen/pseuds/aflashofgreen'>aflashofgreen</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I like to call myself wound but I will answer to knife [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>A Song of Ice and Fire &amp; Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Spies &amp; Secret Agents, Angst, Doomed Relationship, Dysfunctional Relationships, Ending Relationship, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Violence, Lack of Communication, Mild Sexual Content, Minor Sansa Stark/Daenerys Targaryen, Spies &amp; Secret Agents, Spy Sansa Stark, all the sad relationship tags, does this count as a relationship study too?, people being mean and unfair to each other</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 13:22:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,653</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26161933</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/aflashofgreen/pseuds/aflashofgreen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>I want / to be soft, to say <em>here is my underbelly</em> and I want you / to hold the knife, but I don’t know what I want you to do: / plunge or mercy. I deserve both. I want to hold and be held. . . . I am trying to tell the truth: the dreams are how / I haunt myself.<br/>— Nicole Homer, "Underbelly"</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jon Snow/Sansa Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>I like to call myself wound but I will answer to knife [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1896364</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the wounded with the wounder's whip</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Full disclaimer: this fic wasn’t supposed to exist. Halfway through writing part one, my brain went “here’s how you can make it about jonsa tho” and this is the result. Clearly, writing about their relationship falling apart is how I’ve decided to work out my frustrations with season 8 (and by contributing to expanding the number of fics where Sansa is the one walking away! A cause dear to my heart.)</p><p>This fic is about Jon and Sansa’s relationship, though it happens concurrently with part one while covering a larger timeframe that starts before Sansa meets Daenerys. I don’t think it’s necessary to have read part one to understand what’s going on here, but this fic offers more context for what happened in the first one.</p><p>Title from I Forget Where We Were by Ben Howard.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“He’s growing fast.”</p><p>A football game is taking place on the pitch, where her eyes are trained on the sole red-haired player. Her brother is taller than Robb was at his age, she observes.</p><p>He’ll be taller than Robb was when he died.</p><p>Jon doesn’t startle at the sound of her voice. She’s taken the seat behind him, watching Rickon from the stands as he runs across the field. He’s good at the sport and he looks happy and well. The thought always brings her comfort, that her little brother goes to school, meets with friends, enjoys his hobbies, shares meals with Jon. It’s why she will never come close enough to her last remaining sibling to shatter this fantasy — things are never as perfect as they seem, but whatever small hurts her baby brother may have known in his young life, they are nothing like the pain she’ll inflict on him if they meet.</p><p>Later, while Rickon is celebrating his team’s victory with his mates under the supervision of the perfect looking soccer mom, Jon takes her to a nearby café where the couches are worn but comfortable, with indie music playing softly in the background. It could almost be a date.</p><p>“Are you sleeping with her?” Sansa drops two sugar cubes in her tea, adds milk. She recalls the way that woman looked at Jon, leaned into him, touched his arm, and imagines him returning some of the same desire. “She’d be up for it if you offered.”</p><p>“She’s married.” Not <em>I’m not interested</em>, though that was clear from the start. It’s always about honor with him, she thinks, even this between the two of them.</p><p>They go back to his place and there’s desire in his gaze now. Her clothes find their way to the floor soon and he finds his place between her thighs. “Is that how you are with them too?” She wonders out loud. He only says her name in reply, the two syllables the only things he says for a while. Afterwards Jon tucks her head under his chin, holds her close the way he always does given the opportunity, and Sansa lies there, his fingers rubbing circles on her back, and thinks of other women he might do the same with.</p><p>“Is that how you are with the others too?” His hands aren’t soft or smooth, but he’s always made sure they were wanted. He’s never followed her lead so faithfully as he has in this one aspect, and yet satisfaction stands stubbornly out of their reach.</p><p>“No.”</p><p>Whether he says it for her benefit or because he imagines she’ll hurt these women he doesn’t allow himself to love otherwise is anyone’s guess. Some mix of both probably, but to her ears the truth sounds worse than the lie would have. Disappointment awaited her whatever his answer had been, she finds.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>She showed up at Rickon’s school that first time. When she spoke, his ears didn’t ring with familiarity at the sound of her voice, and he didn’t recognize the vague shape in the periphery of his vision, the only noticeable feature her hair colored some dark shade halfway between brown and black. Until he turned towards the voice that had addressed him and saw her face, he’d thought the young woman on his left was another parent or caretaker come to pick up their children.</p><p>“Which one’s yours?”</p><p>Jon was finishing a cigarette a few steps away from the entrance, waiting for the bell to ring. Some pre-school aged kids were enjoying the playground under the watchful eye of the adults nearby, waiting for their older siblings to come out, he imagined, before heading home. Jon only meant to correct the false assumption — <em>his</em> kid was yet to show up, though Rickon would be surprised to find Jon calling out for him today instead of Osha.</p><p>Much the same feeling that rooted Jon to the spot when he found himself looking into her face, confusion closing around his throat, killing his initial reply to replace it with a raspy whisper he could barely get out.</p><p>Sansa’s answer was to say his name in kind, her tone incomprehensibly candid.</p><p>He didn’t think twice before pulling her firmly to his chest, her arms coming up around him to hug him back just as strongly. He should’ve picked up on the novelty of the gesture, but that kind of reflection would come later. In that moment they just stood there, in a bone-crushing embrace Jon had never imagined to share with Sansa Stark, cigarette lying somewhere about their feet, half smoked and forgotten.</p><p>Their behavior was entirely at odds with their history. Whatever small fondness he’d once felt for Sansa, it was one born of proximity, nothing like the affection and camaraderie he shared with Robb or Arya. Her face belonged in the past, he’d thought, fated to remain an ever fading memory just like her siblings’ and her parents’. Another ghost.</p><p>She’s not a faint recollection anymore, more like a vision on a timer — elusive and always temporary.</p><p>There’s no denying how real she feels in his arms, but the things she does away from him, they’re real too. The clock strikes midnight and there’s still time for her to become a ghost after all. Who knew he’d be the one longing for a fiction?</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>He asks her to come home, the same way he’s asked her many times before. It’s something she admires in Jon; he’s an idealist who wants to believe another way is always possible. In this case, a different way to live her life than the one she’s chosen, who cares that it’s the only one she might actually find peace in someday. Or at least revenge. She isn’t a fool anymore to believe things can ever go back to what they were so long ago, or that she can be the person Jon wants her to be, the sort she hoped to become once upon a time too.</p><p>“Come home,” he says, like it’s something as simple as returning to a place you visited before. Is home here in his eyes, she wonders, in the flat he shares with her brother who’s as much of a stranger to her as Jon’s honor is. Rickon is well looked after, he is safe here, loved. <em>I can do the same for you. I can save you</em>, are the things Jon doesn’t say.</p><p>It’d be too direct and then they'd have to stop this for good.</p><p>Still he asks.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em>“I’ll take the couch,” he says once, at the beginning, his voice disrupting the quiet of the night after a while.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“And what will you tell Rickon when he wakes up and finds you there?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Jon shrugs. “I fell asleep watching Netflix,” he offers. “Reading a book. I don’t know, Sansa. I get up before he does anyway.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“He looks like you, you know, after a fashion. I’ve seen him yawn shamelessly and not cover his mouth enough times, so it’s safe to say he has your manners,” she chides and he can’t suppress a smile, though it doesn’t last long because Sansa moves closer to him next. “And your fancy curls too somehow,” her commentary goes on, one hand reaching up to run her fingers through his hair, lightly grazing the outline of his ear in the process. Her hand is respectably back by her side when she adds, “If I go into his bathroom, will I find the same hair care products that are in yours?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“It was buy-two-for-one,” he plays along, trying to steer the conversation back into safer territory. This, echoes of running water in his shower, the mental image of Sansa with his towel wrapped around her when she strolled back into his bedroom, is what he’s trying to avoid. Keep it light. But she’s rarely so cooperative.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“He’s yours more than he’ll ever be mom or dad’s.” It stings all the more because it comes out in soft tones, meant kindly.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“He knows who they are. I didn’t lie to him, you know. I couldn’t tell him the whole truth but… I would never take–”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“That’s not what I meant,” she interrupts his well-meaning stammering. “So it doesn’t go unsaid: I’m glad he has you.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Her gratitude is the last thing he wants. He did what he had to do, the only right thing left to do. Is that what she thinks she’s done too since their separation, he wonders darkly. Some things he’d rather be left unspoken.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Go to sleep, Sansa. We’ll talk in the morning.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I don’t want to sleep.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Whether they share a bed or not, she’ll be gone when he wakes up. For a few hours or a few weeks, months… only time ever tells. This is what she offers him. Jon should be more reluctant to accept it.</em>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em>One rare afternoon — rare for its occurrence, rare for its treacherous sense of domesticity — he asks her, “Are you sketching me?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“That’s a little presumptuous,” she scowls not unkindly, eyes still focused on her work.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I remember you drawing all the time before.” Before the blood in her father’s study, before the car accident. Before she ever looked at him with any sort of interest. “I can’t remember seeing your drawings, though.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Nor does she offer to show him now. Instead she puts her notebook down on the couch she was sitting on, and crosses the distance to the open kitchen.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Would you pose for me?” Sansa asks, leaning over the counter, hand under his chin, studying his features like he’s already given his assent.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The vegetables he was cutting are forgotten. Meal prep’s a bitch anyway. “Can’t draw me from memory?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Why would I? You’re right here.”</em>
</p><p>Always<em>, he longs to answer, but eats his words the way they’ve learnt to do around each other.</em></p><p>
  <em>“A self-portrait otherwise,” she continues on, blissfully unaware. “That might be more appealing.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He lifts an eyebrow at her. “Who’s presumptuous now.”</em>
</p><p><em>Sansa laughs. It was a funny thing to say, so she laughs and he smiles. They are having </em>fun<em>.</em></p><p>
  <em>“Well, am I wrong?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>It isn’t enough to bite his tongue this time. Instead he picks up the knife again and doesn’t look at her when he says, “I’d rather have you.”</em>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>They’re not at the beginning anymore. When he walks into his bedroom tonight, Sansa is sitting at the small desk in the corner. Jon pauses at the sight of her, the smile on his face faltering.</p><p>“Hey, I have to go,” he talks into the phone at his ear. “Yeah, see you soon. Goodnight.” He hangs up and locks the door behind him before facing her again, arms crossed over his chest. “Rickon just went to sleep,” is his only greeting.</p><p>She heard Jon tell her brother to hand in his Switch and go to bed twenty minutes ago. Rickon grunted but complied, while Sansa sat in a half lit room thinking of a past life.</p><p>“You sound like dad.”</p><p>Jon acts and looks like Ned Stark more than any of the late man’s actual children ever did. When Jon places a kiss on her brow, or hums in answer to anything like it’s an acceptable way to keep a conversation going, it’s her father he emulates. Never more so than when he looks at her in disappointment.</p><p>“Not exactly a big pool of male candidates for me to take after,” he trails off wearily. “Who else would I sound like?”</p><p>His eyes fall on the newspaper on the desk then, where Sansa found it open on an article whose title reads <em>DEATH TOLL AT BARATHEON ENTERPRISES</em>. Even his frown is reminiscent of someone else’s. Jon hasn’t seen her in four months and he knows why.</p><p>“Was it them?” <em>Was it you?</em> Sansa nods yes to both questions.</p><p>“Baelish s–”</p><p>“Don’t talk about him,” his voice cuts in, provoked at once.</p><p>How painfully predictable he is, she thinks.</p><p>“Fine. Let’s drink then.” She pulls out a bottle of tequila from a paper bag, Jon’s angry stare fixed on her face.</p><p>“It’s a weekday, Sansa.” He’s already moving toward the bathroom. “I wake up early.”</p><p>By the time he comes out, she’s lying on his bed. Jon doesn’t even blink, turning the lights off and sliding in next to her, showing her his back. Dismissive.</p><p>“Sweet dreams,” she mocks in the dark.</p><p>“Screw you, Sansa. Unless you came over to suck my dick, keep your mouth shut or leave.”</p><p>
  <em>Well, I have his attention now.</em>
</p><p>“That’s really nice to hear, thanks. I don’t think I’ll be doing either, though.”</p><p>“Fucking figures,” he mutters, but despite her claim, she lets silence settle between them. The tequila stings as it travels down her throat. It’s almost pleasant for how preferable it is to the burn of heaving sobs.</p><p>“It was Tywin Lannister.” This is the grand declaration she came to make. The grand revelation that pushes them over to the third act at last.</p><p>Jon doesn’t move, but his reaction can be heard in the effort he makes to adopt a placid tone. “Tywin Lannister died last December. His youngest son–”</p><p>“Killed him. Yeah,” she finishes for him. “I only meant he put the hit on them. Sent men to do his dirty work.” But Sansa doesn’t need to delegate anything, they both know. “Do you remember after Mr Baratheon passed, when Tywin became CEO following the hostile takeover? Every time I heard that word, I pictured angry, bickering co-workers.” She scoffs bitterly at the memory of her younger self. “Angry enough to murder it turns out.” That part, the newspapers left out.</p><p>“How do you know it was him?”</p><p>Blonde hair flashes before her eyes. Daenerys isn’t a sore spot the way Baelish is because Jon has never heard of her. Sansa could tell him about her if she wanted to be cruel, but she doesn’t want to. She’s rather content keeping Dany to herself. And Jon knows in his own way regardless.</p><p>“Well you’ve pretty much forbidden me from talking about one of the key elements in solving the mystery, so…”</p><p>“When the fuck do you listen to me?” Angry again. “Don’t say any more, though. I got the gist.” </p><p>“Have you?” She exclaims, sneering back at him. “I’m happy, Jon. That’s all I wanted, for you to get the gist,” she repeats the phrase pointedly.</p><p>“You think this is some great relief to me? Those fuckers can rot in hell — well deserved — does that make Robb any less dead? Your parents? Do you suddenly feel any better?”</p><p>“I don’t feel worse,” she declares, but Jon doesn’t take the fucking bait.</p><p>All he does is lean over to take the bottle from her, setting it on his nightstand, and then his arms are around her. It’s easy to turn on her side, facing away, so he can scoot closer. One hand finds her waist and she feels safe here, she feels loved, she feels sad.</p><p>Of all the things she can’t share with Jon, grief won’t ever be one of them. It follows them everywhere, spreading like a bad smell coming off rotting flesh to occupy the space around them. There is no window to open, not in each other’s presence. The stench is suffocating, stinging her eyes.</p><p>“Who is she?” She asks suddenly, relishing in the feel of his body tensing up behind her. He tried to keep his tone light on the phone and does now too, not bothering to ask who she’s referring to before answering her question.</p><p>“A friend of a friend, I guess. Rickon wanted to try his hand at skating, and Osha — the girl who picks him up after school,” he clarifies, “she has a friend who knows a friend, who could teach him some moves. Rickon’s moved on now anyway.”</p><p>Sansa feels his breath on her neck as he exhales the last of his sentence. He can’t possibly think this is a satisfying answer.</p><p>“You often talk on the phone at night with friends of friends?”</p><p>“You don’t care what I do, Sansa,” he replies, not missing a beat. She’s worn his patience thin tonight at least. Pretense and hands alike are gone as he shifts away from her. “Complaining I don’t fuck around is all right so long as I stick to my guns, is it? If you want to hear me say I’m deceiving you, I will actually laugh.”</p><p>He’s wrong twice over. Sansa doesn’t expect remorse or an apology. She’s the one who would laugh in his face if he gave her either.</p><p>A familiar frustration starts to seep into her bones, equally unwanted, but just as swiftly as Jon pulled away from her, he pushes her down on her back, his lips finding hers. Sansa immediately matches the fervor of his mouth, her hands coming up to close behind his neck, but Jon doesn’t let her, pulling on her arms to keep her from embracing him. Instead he brings a hand to hold her jaw, tipping her head back to reveal her throat and put his tongue there too.</p><p>“This is what you want from me.” He says it like he’s resigned himself to it, lips against her skin, and Sansa can’t stand it.</p><p>“I don’t know what I want from you.” It’s an ugly confession to make, though not her first tonight.</p><p>“Then tell me to stop.”</p><p>Despite the threat, his mouth doesn’t move from its spot. Jon keeps sucking and licking, lingering on her pulse. She actually whines, the way she did as a child when her mother would forbid her to eat any more lemon cakes after she’d had her third.</p><p>“No,” Sansa answers stubbornly, nails digging into his sides.</p><p>Jon lets go of his grip on her, and for a second she thinks he’s decided to punish her. But his hands are on her pants next, unbuttoning them. They shove them down her legs together, uncovering the place where Sansa needs him most now, and which he knows so well. Jon finds his way easily. If only it could make up for all their failings.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em>“You say my name a lot.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Sansa,” comes his reply, spoken in his thick northern accent she hears nowhere save in his presence anymore, her name falling from his lips like an evidence. “It’s a pretty name.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Jon says things like that sometimes, sweet things that would have pleased her once. The knowledge passes between them, observed in her lack of reaction and his eyes that take notice. Often he frowns as a result. Sansa can’t tell whether in confusion, disappointment or recrimination.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She can’t tell whether it’s directed at her or himself.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“What else would I call you?” he sighs.</em>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Petyr Baelish trades in secrets and weapons. His art dealership business, The Mockingbird, is a cover for money laundering, his and others’. Whatever Jon’s suspicions are — and his knowledge is far from extensive — he knows this simple truth: Petyr Baelish is a bad man who does not have Sansa’s interests at heart. He can’t fathom why she remains in his employ.</p><p>No one could make excuses for Sansa now, her decisions and her deeds, the way they might have when she was still a girl and Baelish oh so generously spirited her away. She isn't asking for absolution either, despite Jon’s efforts to give it to her anyway.</p><p>His knowledge of her is even more limited than his knowledge of her boss.</p><p>Jon was sixteen when it all went tits up, when he took Rickon and they vanished because it was the last thing left to do. They didn’t know what they were running from, only that they had to go. It’s been eleven years now, they have new lives so vastly different from the fond dream that was their childhood. Bran and Arya have been lost to them all this time, and she wouldn’t be surprised to hear Jon considers the same to be true of her.</p><p>There’s a sheet of ice between them with cracks they reach through to get to each other occasionally. They remain on either side the rest of the time, watching the other in distorted lines, walking on slippery ground and determined to pretend banging their heads with each fall won’t leave any damage. But knocking down the wall separating them won’t bring them any closer.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>“I want you. I don’t know how to stop wanting you.”</p><p>His breath is at the back of her neck and she wishes she could turn around and kiss him properly so he would stop talking. There’s another verb, which he had the sense not to use at least. The knowledge will haunt them anyway.</p><p>“You’ll learn,” she sighs, pressing back against him.</p><p>His fingers on her are efficient. They speak of experience, of familiarity. She comes quickly. There’s no more talking after that.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em>There’s an unexpected melancholy about her. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You okay?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>She grins at him prettily, convincingly. It’s a lie all the same. “I’m great.” Smile on her face as she adds, “I just felt like seeing you.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He wants different things for her, better things. He could even live with not being the person who gives them to her. All that he offers is unneeded, she’s made clear. One day, she will do without it.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Come here.” She starts to play with his shirt when she’s settled in his arms, rubbing a finger back and forth along the curve where collar meets skin. He closes his eyes and lets himself enjoy her attention. “Did you really miss me?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I wanted to see you,” she repeats in the dim light of the room.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>The subtle distinction between his question and her answer doesn’t escape his notice. He doesn’t hold it up for inspection, though, just lets it go in favor of bending his head to kiss her forehead and trying to hold her closer.</em>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>The truth is that there’s no difficulty in being away from Jon. Years had gone by before she’d even thought of looking for him after their world came crashing down. They were never close as children; Sansa had ignored him most of the time, really, not always consciously. In many ways, it’s easier not to be with him. Effortless. The opposite of what it feels like being close to him.</p><p>But they’re all they have left of the past.</p><p>So she merely walks around the flat, feeling like everything is held together in a band that only keeps stretching. It’s going to break.</p><p>“Do you remember my mom’s lake house in Michigan?” The Tully’s to be accurate. Mom used to take them there once a year. “Rickon would have grown up learning to swim there.” Would have <em>if</em>, but Jon already knows all that.</p><p>He hums from his spot next to a bookshelf, body leaning against the wall. “I almost drowned in that lake. Your father pulled me out.”</p><p>“Dad didn’t let me go back in the water without armbands on for the rest of the summer because of you. Thanks for that.” Her tone is light as she allows herself to be swept away by the memories of those warm sun-filled weeks — Jon’s next words sound like an accusation.</p><p>“You don’t need assistance nowadays.”</p><p>The band breaks. Her sentence has been drawn with no hope for clemency after all.</p><p>“And that bothers you, doesn’t it? Above all, it bothers you that I don’t seek your approval.”</p><p>“Right,” he nods, voice dripping of sarcasm. “Only Baelish’s.”</p><p>“It’s done, Jon,” she says, ignoring his comment. <em>Almost done, anyway.</em> Dany has no idea what she gave her, what Tyrion’s intel truly means.</p><p>Littlefinger will be dead before the next full moon.</p><p>Jon doesn’t want to hear it, he said, but she’s over being silent for the sake of a fragile peace too. It’s been under their noses all along, she thinks, but it still comes as a surprise to acknowledge the truth: that they forced each other into roles, doing so the only way they found how to hold on to one another for this long.</p><p>“I’m avenging my parents, avenging Robb. All of us.” Dead or alive, they’re all specters in the end, Arya and Bran, wherever they may be, most accurately. Rickon, for being spared the haunting memories of a past he was too young to ever mourn. Whoever he becomes, it won’t be who he would have been had life gone undisrupted, and that’s its kind of loss too. But Jon and her weren’t afforded the kindness of blissful ignorance. “Don’t lie to me and say that isn’t something you wish for too.”</p><p>He shakes his head in protest anyway. “You’re Baelish’s henchman, that’s all you are. He doesn’t give a shit about your vendetta; his only concern is all the chaos he sends you to create and how it’ll profit him.”</p><p>She laughs darkly, thinking of the chaos <em>Jon</em> has helped her create here. The ideal outcome for Baelish is the one where Sansa walks out on her brother and her lover for good, no looking back this time. That’s what he’d been counting on when he gave her their location three years ago, that Sansa would meet Jon, would meet Rickon, and find nothing that she might ever want to return to, their differences too pronounced to make any sort of relationship long-lasting. With Arya and Bran lost, it should have sealed Sansa’s resolution to remain by Baelish’s side, the only reliable person left in her entourage. But he didn’t expect that she’d let this little detour home last this long, not accounting for the last deeply repressed part of Sansa that was still a thirteen-year-old girl and knew nothing of Alayne. That lack of foresight on Baelish’s part wasn’t a fatal flaw, however. In the end, he’s still right: Sansa cannot stay here.</p><p>“You think me so naive,” she notes acidly. “He’s not my master any more than you are.”</p><p>“<em>You</em> think I want to <em>control</em> you?” Bitterness taints every word. “You’ll get yourself killed trying to achieve something unachievable, Sansa.”</p><p>“There are worse fates than death.”</p><p>“And there are better ones too.”</p><p>His voice is rising, but she keeps hers calm, aiming to aggravate him further. “Like the one where I drop everything for your pretty face? It’s only more of our current same after that. I could pretend to be happy and you’d pretend not to notice I’m pretending.”</p><p>“Don’t mock me for still wanting the things you’ve given up on.” His face contorts in a grimace. “And don’t waste your breath trying to convince me. I’m not even sure I could pretend as much anymore. I’m just sad.”</p><p>He surrenders again, whatever brief anger he felt gone. He never used to bend so easily. <em>Why won’t you put up a fight, Jon?</em> In truth, she’s disappointed too.</p><p>“Well, aren’t you sick of it?” she answers just as sadly.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>In the end, the true end, there’s only one thing left to do.</p><p>“Tell me.”</p><p>So they listen.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>
  <em>Her movements slow down until she’s completely still save for the rise and fall of her chest. All she does is breathe, damp hair plastered to her temples, locking eyes with him.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Would you call me Alayne?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>His grip on her waist tightens, like she’s about to sprint for the door or the window — wherever it is she keeps breaking into the flat through — and he might prevent her retreat that way. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>“No.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You don’t like it?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>One hand reaches up to grab a lock of red hair, bringing it over her shoulder where it drapes over her chest.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I don’t.”</em>
</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>Their second parting doesn’t happen face to face.</p><p>Dead people don’t send postcards. When Jon picks up his mail and finds a “Get well soon!” card with no return address, he scoffs. The handwritten message is a recipe for lemon cakes. Sansa always fancied herself clever.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>